Jesus in Berkeley?

Pictures: http://picasaweb.google.com/steve.r.childs/JiB2007?authkey=jhmvuOZHvoM

Our 4th annual welcome night for new students, "Jesus in Berkeley?", sponsored this year by 27 camus fellowships and churches, was held this past Saturday August 25th. The vision for the event is to really make an effort to display to incoming students as well as the rest of the campus, our unity as believers, as churches and fellowships, at the beginning of the school year; and also to provide an opportunity for new students to experience that unity and get plugged in to a community where they can walk with the Lord while they are here at Cal.

It really went well, praise God! We rented out the biggest lecture hall on campus (Wheeler Auditorium), brought in a band for worship, had a Christian faculty member give a short welcome, I spoke from the word for 10-15 minutes, one representative from each sponsoring group lined up on stage to identify their group, and then the students had a chance to talk with groups at tables that had been set up in the lobby of Wheeler, while munching on some snacks. Rougly 300 people showed up, although that could be a bit low.

Involvement from the groups was great. The Wednesday before the event we had over 50 people show up for a planning meeting to get everything in order for the night. And the night of at least that many were there an hour or so before the event getting things set up.

It's so easy to get caught up in trying to get new students to come to our events, and our group and to grow our church, but it's so important to remember that we are not competing against other churches or groups for people, but rather working together to lift up the name of Jesus in Berkeley and extend the offer of life through Him to everyone here. The enemy desires to divide us and get us quarreling among ourselves, which mutes the message of Jesus to those who see us. Check out what Jesus prayed in John 17:20-24, I hope this event helps us take a step closer to being what Jesus prayed that we would be.